About 85% of all batteries used commercially are alkaline batteries (dry cell batteries). These are currently essentially all land filled because current potential recycling processes for these batteries have high energy cost, capital costs, and processing costs which do not allow for sufficient economic incentive for the recovery of the valuable components of these batteries. These batteries contain about 26-65% steel as the casing, 4-10% alkaline electrolyte, 20-35% mixed manganese oxides, 20-35% zinc hydroxide/oxide and some carbon. The size of the battery or ratio of casing to contrast determines the relative amount of steel casing to the zinc and manganese content. If these batteries are to be economically viable to be recycled, the zinc oxide and the manganese oxides would have to be readily and efficiently isolated separately in high purity (>95%) and yield to maximize their value. In addition the steel casings would also need to be isolated free of these other components for efficient recycle as scrap steel for steel production. There have been a number of
processes described for processing and recycling these batteries. These processes range from pyro metallurgical ones in which the iron and manganese are recovered in an alloy and the zinc might be partially recovered as impure in the flue dust and requires much further processing by hydrometallurgical steps which require the total solution of the zinc and then extensive chemical separation steps. There are some processes which attempt selective solution of the zinc and in the presence of considerable amount of the steel casing which in a mixed solution of manganese, iron and zinc now have to be separated with high purity requiring many processing steps and high energy.